Ballast Colour

[Alan]

Whilst trying to decide on which colour ballast to use on my model railroad, I studied photographs we took on Tehachapi and Cajon passes.

Tehachapi (UP) has grey, whilst Cajon (BNSF) has a reddish colour, on their tracks, and it is again grey on the UP (ex-SP) track.

So I assume that UP and BNSF use different quarries/type of stone. Does anyone have any info? Thanks.

[Gregg Mahlkov]

Alan, large railroads use ballast from local quarries located on their line. Most use granite, but generally they do not transport ballast more than a couple of hundred miles. For example, since there is no stone within that distance from New Orleans, much of the trackage there is ballasted with oyster shells dredged from Lake Pontchartrain. ATSF is known for reddish ballast out west, while, CNW was known for pink ballast that came from a quarry in Wisconsin. ;)